Report Reveals Anti-Semitism Behind Presbyterian BDS Vote

NGO Monitor exposes hate content posted by members of group which lobbied Church to vote to join BDS.

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Ari Yashar, 25/06/14 14:30

BDS movement (illustration)

Reuters

Jerusalem-based NGO Monitor on Thursday released a report, revealing how anti-Semitic hatred fueled the Presbyterian Church USA's vote last Friday to join the boycott against Israel.

The decision by the Church to divest from three companies that provide supplies to Israeli security forces and Jews living in Judea and Samaria was led in part by the Israel-Palestine Mission Network (IPMN), an activist group affiliated with the Church.

NGO Monitor in its report released evidence of how IPMN promotes blatant anti-Semitism, both on its Facebook page and in a booklet entitled "Zionism Unsettled: A Congregational Study."

"The IPMN's Facebook page is in fact a hate site operating under the protective wings of the Presbyterian Church," said Yitzhak Santis, NGO Monitor's Chief Programs Officer.

Despite the fact that openly anti-Semitic content was continuously posted to the Facebook page, Santis noted that none of the postings "were repudiated by the IPMN leadership or other members of this Facebook group. Several Presbyterian Church senior staff members are also members of this group, and they remained silent."

The anti-Semitic postings included a statement last November that "Israel's Zionist establishment wants constant war. No longer a surprise, but a most serious evil." The page also featured numerous links to the Iranian state-owned Press TV charging Israel with various conspiracy theories.

Another racist posting denied the Jewish identity of Ashkenazic Jews, saying "it seems like the Ashkenazis (sic) have an inferiority complex because they descend from Kaszars (sic) and lack any genetic tie to Palestine...the Ashkenazis are looking more fraudulent than ever in claiming a Jewish Homeland for the Jewish (White Race) only."

“IRAN! Thank God for them! The only Zionist-free land left on earth," read another unchallenged rant on the IPMN page.

Santis remarked "the moral credibility of the Presbyterians is on the line. The church must repudiate and fully distance itself from IPMN and its bigotry. IPMN has been walking the church down a dark path, and Presbyterians should ask themselves if this is the direction they wish to go."

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu responded to the Presbyterian boycott by recommending on Tuesday that the Church members "come to Israel, tour the country as you're doing and then take a bus tour to the Middle East. They should go to Libya, Syria, Iraq. They'll see Christians persecuted, churches burnt, minorities butchered, majorities butchered."

"And I have only two suggestions to them. One, make sure that it's an armored-plated bus, and two, don’t say that you're Christian," concluded Netanyahu.